Merciless
by Ensignily
Summary: § Dipper can't help but notice the strange, dapper man that always seems to be nearby whenever he is in town. When the stranger ends up coming to him, Dipper is nothing short of frightened. That's when he learns that the body is mortal, while the soul is not. § Human!Bill one shot (will be continued in a separate fic) §


Hullo! This is my first time writing Gravity Falls fanfiction. This is just a quick human!bill thing I wrote. The characters in this show are surprisingly hard to write. Anyways, I hope you like it!

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><p>Dipper first saw him in the grocery store when he went to pick up some eggs for Grunkle Stan; Dipper swore the man was contemplating over what chips to get for over an hour. He was pretty sure he also heard him laughing at a bag of Doritos. The second time was when Dipper was walking around town; the man was always across the street, walking in the same direction as Dipper. He was easy to spot, considering he held his arms out at a ninety-degree angle as he walked. Even after taking shortcuts he was sure nobody else knew about, the man was still there, seemingly minding his own business as he walked purposefully along the sidewalk, his long strides equivalent to Dipper's steady jog.<p>

The first time he actually ever spoke to the stranger, however, was while Dipper was visiting the library on a particularly cool Sunday afternoon. Most people were enjoying the outdoors, so the library was mostly empty. Dipper had come on a mission to read about snakes; he was convinced that he had seen something that resembled an amphisbaena in the forest earlier that morning. He found four large books on the subject of mythical snakes and slammed them down on a secluded table in the back of the library.

Dipper had unsuccessfully read through the entire first book without any luck. Sighing, he closed it and pushed it aside, reaching for the next book on his stack.

"You're not going to have too much luck with that one, either."

Dipper jumped and saw the mysterious stranger sitting across from him, an amused expression on his face. It was un**k**nown to how he got there so soundlessly or how he knew about what Dipper was researching. If Dipper hadn't known any better, he'd think that this man was the aftermath of his twin sister releasing the naive clones of Sev'ral Timez out into the wild; the man before him was young and abnormally good looking, as if he was artificially made. His hair - which was almost unnaturally blond**e** - stuck up at odd angles and hung over his face, completely covering his right eye. The e**y**e that was visible, which was lined with dark eyelashes, appeared wide with excitement as he gazed across the table at Dipper. A small top hat sat lopsided at the top of his head, unlike the stiff bow tie that peeked out from the white dress shirt underneath a charming yellow Footman's coat. His entire appearance was flashy, yet dapper.

"W-What?" Dipper stuttered, unable to make anything else come out of his mouth. He only knew one thing**:** this man knew him, but Dipper didn't.

"Amphisbaenas live in the desert, not in the middle of the forest. You wouldn't have found that information in any of these books, and you definitely wouldn't have seen that thing in this town." The man's voice sounded strangely reverberant, even though the trait was not physically possible.

Dipper's face twisted in confusion. "You've been following me! I saw you at the store, and- and across the-"

"Are you done?" The man interrupted impatiently. "You might be interesting, kid, but your ramblings just go on, and on, and on…" He flapped his glove-clad hands about mindlessly as he spoke.

"Yeah, okay. Who are you, what do you want?" Dipper spat, trying to put on his most threatening glare.

He didn't respond, apparently deep in thought. Dipper was about to wave a hand in front of the stranger's face when he let out a loud, cackling laugh. The horrible familiarity of it sent shivers up Dipper's spine.

"You're so infatuated with these things, kid!" He exclaimed, wiping the corner of his eye. "None of it matters, or at least not yet, anyways," he continued, a wide, stilted grin plastered onto his face. "I guess you could say that I'm new around here, though not really. You just haven't noticed me yet, and neither has anybody else."

Dipper sat there staring at him for a while, and soon became aware of how little the man blinked. "What do you **m**ean?" He asked, but the stranger didn't answer; he just curiously watched Dipper, resting his chin on his palm. Dipper scowled and reached for the next book.

"I told you that those books aren't going to be much help."

"Look, man, just leave me alone." Dipper snapped as he proceeded to flip to the table of contents.

"You probably just saw a regular snake, there's some normal animals around here, too, you know." He paused, grinning down at Dipper, wh**o** was trying to ignore the man and focus on the book. "Besides," he continued, grin t**r**ansforming into a smug smirk, "you should be focused on bigger things."

Dipper shifted in his seat. "What? What type of-" Dipper cut off mid-sentence when he looked up and saw that the man was gone.

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><p>Two days later Dipper was working in the Mystery Shack, rearranging some Magic 8 balls on the shelves. The pleasant weather had died out the day before, as it was now blistering hot and all the windows and doors were open in hopes of a breeze. Tuesdays weren't the best days for business, so prices were raised and whoever walked through the door was immediately pestered by Stan to take a tour.<p>

Dipper stepped back from the shelf and admired his work; the boxes were now arranged to look like a large 8 from a distance. Dipper's small grin of satisfaction slowly fell when he realized how silent the Shack was. Usually, there were the sounds of amused tourists on tours, small chattering of people admiring souvenirs in the gift shop, the hum of car engines as they pulled up onto the property, or the reoccurring flutter of Wendy's magazine as she turned the page. Dipper turned around to find that he was the only one standing in the gift shop.

_Wendy must have went on a bathroom break without telling me, _he reassured himself as he plopped himself down onto the stool behind the register. After a few minutes of the restless silence, Dipper began to feel uneasy. _Why wasn't she back yet?_

Dipper pressed random bu**t**tons on the cash register in boredom, listening to the obnoxious beeps and chimes.

"This is neat! Say, is it for sale?" Dipper nearly fell out of his chair when he heard the all-too-familiar voice inside the gift shop. He looked up and saw the yellow-haired stranger standing by one of Stan's large yellow banners he kept all over the shack.

"You again!"

The man laughed and approached the register, maniacal smile never faltering. "Ah, yes, _me again_. I thought you were smart, Pine Tree, you really still don't know who I am?"

Dipper stiffened up and averted his gaze towards the cash register, which currently read $6.18 from his random key pounding. There was only one person that called him by that name. "Bill…" he whispered. Panic slowly rose up inside of his body. _Bill Cipher. Possessing some poor man. Following me for days. Inside the Mystery Shack. Standing right here in front of me as a human and I'm wide awake._

"That's right." Bill lifted up the bangs that covered his right eye to reveal a black, triangular eye patch. Dipper tried to deny the fact that there was dry blood around the edges. Bill dropped his hair and tucked it behind his ear, leaving the eye patch visible, much to Dipper's displeasure.

"What- what are you doing here? What do you want now? Whose body is this?" Dipper asked all at once.

"Yeesh, kid, one question at a time." Bill said, leaning against the counter. "First of all, I didn't take anyone's body, quit worrying. This is all mine." His psychotic expression relaxed into a charming grin.

Dipper's eyebrows creased together in thought. "You said that you needed to possess a vessel in order to walk **a**round and… stuff." Dipper finished lamely.

"I did, but after the unpleasant experience of possessing your body, I did some… research." Bill stepped back and made a cane appear in his hands. He began to wander around the shop as he swung his cane about, stopping to look at some sort of phony knick-knack on the shelf.

"What kind of research?" Dipper persisted.

Bill kept walking around, now inspecting a small red box with the Mystery Shack's trademark question mark on the front. "Alternatives," was all he said. He put the box back down and suddenly let out another irritating **l**augh as his eye landed on something across the shop. He strode over to the shelf near the open door and pulled down a one-eyed skull. "Hey, it looks like me!"

"What types of alternatives? And put that back!" Dipper sprang up and stood on top of the stool.

"Relax, Pine Tree, I'm not going to take any of this garbage." He placed the skull back onto the top shelf. "None of these fictitious devices could ever compare to a laser arm cannon, or a-"

"Yeah, I get it. What types of alternatives?" Dipper repeated.

Bill returned to the front of the register and leaned on his cane. "Well, you see, there are two main parts to humans; the body and the conscious. The body does indeed contain key factors to stay running, such as the heart and brain, though constantly need refueling. The conscious, on the other hand, contains the soul. The soul itself is immortal, however, the body is what wears it down and causes humans to die." As Bill spoke, he waved his hands about in the air, though the cane stayed balanced on the floor as if he never took his hands off of it. He spoke to Dipper with a strange casualty, as if he was discussing the lack of air conditioning inside the Shack. "As we have experienced," Bill continued, "possessing the body might have given me access outside of the mindscape, though it came with many of your physical limits. You felt the aftermath, and you should agree that it isn't the best way to run."

Dipper paused to process this information. "So… does that mean that you took-"

"The soul?" Bill finished, his grin spreading impossibly wider. "Right you are, kiddo. The soul, as I said, is immortal and more flexible to my abilities." To prove this, Bill held out his hand towards Dipper and it burst into hot, brilliant blue flames. "Ooh! What's this?" Bill's hand went out as he spotted the _MstryShk _novelty license plates on display behind the counter. He immediately walked over and took one off the wall, turning it over in his hands and examining every inch of it. "I've seen these before, what is it? What does it do?" He bent it, but seeing that it did nothing to the product, proceeded to bang it against the wall.

"Hey! Stop that!" Dipper cried. He leaped off the stool and pried the license plate from Bill's hands, then quickly looked around to make sure the noise hadn't attracted anyone back into the deserted gift shop. "Don't do that!"

Bill merely shrugged. "Whatever you say."

Dipper placed it back onto its proper spot on the wall and returned to his seat. "Okay, now, the souls?"

Dipper blinked and was startled to see the demon had disappeared from his spot.

"Ah, yes. The souls," Bill continued. Dipper whipped his head around to find Bill in his previous location in front of the cash register. He straightened up and put his hands behind his back. "This particular soul wasn't from anybody important; an ill homeless man close to death. I promised him an end to his suffering if he gave me his soul in return – though the removal of the soul results in death. You can't say I didn't fulfill my side of the deal, though." Bill smirked and tugged at the hem of his coat sleeve, which was patterned with bricks.

Dipper sat with his head in his hands. "This isn't fair…"

"Who said I was?" Dipper couldn't tell if his expression was sheepish or sinister.

"So you can just… pop in and out of existence whenever you'd like now? Follow me around twenty-four seven?"

"Quit worrying yourself, you're not _that _interesting."

_Well that's good to know, _Dipper thought to himself, not sure if he was being sarcastic about it or not.

"Nonetheless, we both know what it is that I really want." Bill leaned over the counter, bringing his face alarmingly close to Dipper's. His voice was dishearteningly low and his visible eye turned a bright shade of red.

_Don't back away, Dipper, don't let him know that you're afraid of him…_

Dipper nearly fell out of his chair when Bill's startling laugh filled the air between them. "I already know you're afraid of me, Pine Tree, but I'll give you credit for trying to hide it!"

Dipper struggled with trying to figure out what to say. "It's not like- you'll never- I'll never let you have my journal!"

"Why is it that you act like I'm asking for your permission?" He inquired. "I can get your journal anytime I want to," he brought his face back in front of Dipper's and lowered his voice, "and you can't stop me." With that, Bill tapped Dipper on the nose and pulled away, leaving Dipper with a horrified expression painted on his face.

Bill brushed off his front and picked up his cane. "Never forget what the rise my nightmare realm can bring forth, Pine Tree!" He said as he strode towards the door. He stopped at the doorway and tipped his hat in Dipper's direction. "Until next time." Bill's maniacal grin returned to his face, and then he disappeared out the door.

Dipper bolted towards the doorway, but Bill was gone. Dipper heaved a sigh as he stared out at the forest. When he turned back around, the Shack was bustling with tourists.

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